For Charities

Charity FAQs

The Big Give and match funding

What is the Big Give?

The Big Give is an online donation platform that profiles the work of thousands of UK-registered charities and inspires people to give.

We are responsible for the UK’s biggest online match funding campaign, the Christmas Challenge. In addition to match funding campaigns, we also provide a number of other services to help charities, individuals and philanthropists to connect and raise more money online. Since being founded by Sir Alec Reed in 2007, the Big Give has helped to raise £82 million for UK-registered charities.

The Big Give is generously supported by reed.co.uk which helps us provide a cost-effective service for both charities aiming to raise funds, philanthropists wishing to leverage their giving and individuals wishing to donate money online.

What is match funding?

Match funding is when donations made to a charity are doubled or ‘matched’ by funding from another source.

The Big Give has become known as the online match funding specialists. We run a number of online match funding campaigns throughout the year.

Whether you are a charity looking to take part in a campaign, an individual supporter looking to have your donation doubled or a philanthropist looking to leverage your giving, we can help you.

What are the benefits of the Big Give for charities?

Provision of a safe and secure payment portal so your charity can receive online donations all year round

Full reclaim of eligible Gift Aid

Fraud monitoring

Instant notifications sent to your email of donations received via the Big Give

Charity account area (updated in real time) to monitor details of donations received, including the amount, fees deducted, donor contact details, payment date when it will reach your charity’s bank account and more

Access to the Big Give’s Trustee Finder – you can post a trustee advert from your Big Give account area by going to the ‘Trustee Applications tab’. The role will be advertised on the Big Give for six months and reed.co.uk, the UK’s number 1 job site, for six weeks to give you access to millions of potential trustees

Access to the Big Advice column – we connect you to top industry experts who can offer advice on some of your most challenging charity related issues

Service commitment from the Big Give to maintain, monitor and improve its donation platform to ensure it can manage high levels of traffic while meeting the latest security and banking standards

Service commitment from the Big Give to respond to queries received at info@thebiggive.org.uk within 3 working hours

Registering on the Big Give

To register on the Big Give, your charity must be registered in the UK or have exempt status from HMRC. If you are not sure whether you are eligible, get in touch with us at info@thebiggive.org.uk.

What is ‘exempt’ status?

An exempt charity is one that is not regulated by, and cannot register with, the Charity Commission.

If your charity is not registered with either the English or Scottish Charity Commission, but has tax exempt status for charitable purposes granted by HMRC, you can select ‘exempt’ when registering on the Big Give.

You will then be contacted by a member of the Big Give team who will ask you to provide your exempt number and a letter from HMRC as evidence of this. If you do not have this available, please contact HMRC and they will be able to provide you with this letter.

I’m a CIO. Am I eligible to register?

Yes, as a CIO must be registered with the Charity Commission to legally exist, you are eligible to register on the Big Give.

I’m a CIC. Am I eligible to register?

No, as a CIC does not have charitable status and cannot claim Gift Aid, this type of organisation is not currently eligible to register on the Big Give.

How long is the registration process and what will I be asked?

It takes approximately one hour to complete the charity registration process. Here’s an overview of the information you will need to provide:

No, you will be required to complete the whole registration process before your profile is saved.

If you feel that you may not have time to finish it all before exiting, please copy and paste your responses to the questions into a Word document or similar, so that you have a record when you come back to it another time.

Please note that if you leave a page of the registration process open for longer than 30 minutes without editing it, your session will expire and you will lose any information entered.

Our fees

How much does it cost to register on the Big Give and what are the fees?

It is free to register on the Big Give. All donations (including Gift Aid) made on the Big Give website are subject to a 4% fee. This fee is charged by our payments processor, Charities Trust, a registered charity (no: 327489).

Note that the Big Give is in the process of transitioning to a new payments processor, Charity Checkout. As of 1st April 2018, Charity Checkout will process all donations made via theBigGive.org.uk. The fee will remain at 4%.

How does the Big Give compare to other donation platforms?

To see how the Big Give compares to a selection of donation sites based on making a £10 donation (plus Gift Aid) with a debit card, visit the ‘Our fees’ page.

Receiving donations via the Big Give

Note that the Big Give is in the process of transitioning to a new payments processor, Charity Checkout. From 1st April 2018, all donations will be processed and paid out by Charity Checkout. For more information, click here.

How are donations processed via the Big Give?

All donations made to charities via the Big Give are processed by our partner payment processor Charities Trust. Charities Trust is an HMRC approved agency and a UK registered charity (327489).

How do I register my charity’s bank details with Charities Trust?

To register your charity’s bank details, send a scan of a cancelled cheque or recent bank statement to Holly Worton at Charities Trust by emailing hollyw@charitiestrust.org with the following information on charity headed paper:

Charity name

Charity registration number

Bank sort code

Bank account number

Contact name

Contact email address

Contact landline telephone number

Please note it may take up to two weeks for your details to be verified.

When are donations received via the Big Give paid into my charity’s bank account?

Donations received via the Big Give are paid into your charity’s bank account by BACs transfer on a monthly basis by our payments processor, Charities Trust. The payment is made on 15th of each month, so the funds are expected to reach your bank account 2-3 days later.

Can we find out the details of supporters that donate to us via the Big Give?

Provided the donor does not choose to remain anonymous, you will be able to see their details alongside each donation made via the Big Give. This information is available in your charity account area in the ‘Your donations’ tab at the top of the page.

An individual has donated to our charity using a voucher – what does this mean?

The Big Give runs an educational programme called Philanthropy in Schools, which gives young people the opportunity to experience charitable giving first hand and donate to a charity of their choice using a voucher.

If you have received a voucher donation, feel free to get in touch with us at info@thebiggive.org.uk and we can let you know which school has run the programme for you to say thank you.

How do I reconcile donations received via the Big Give with the amount paid into my charity’s bank account?

You can do this by logging in to the Charity Statements Service provided by our payments processor, Charities Trust. This is a monthly statement facility which shows all available donation details.

Your Big Give account

How do I update my charity’s profile?

To update your charity’s profile on the Big Give, log in to your account area and click the ‘Update charity profile’ button on the right hand side under ‘Charity details’.

I don’t know the log in details for my charity’s account, what should I do?

Email info@thebiggive.org.uk with the following information for the person responsible for your charity’s Big Give account and we will issue you with a new set of log in details:

Contact name

Contact position

Primary email address

Alternative email address (charity’s generic email)

Charity telephone number

How do I post a trustee advert?

To post a trustee advert, log in to your account area and go to the ‘Trustee Applications’ tab at the top of the page. You will need to complete the form and click ‘Submit’ to send your advert to the Big Give team for review. Once approved, you will receive an email from the Big Give to let you know your advert has gone live on theBigGive.org.uk and on reed.co.uk.

How do I ask a Big Give expert a question?

Email your question to advice@thebiggive.org.uk and we will send it on to the best suited individual on our panel of experts.

Staying in touch with the Big Give

Please see below for instructions on how to add an email to your address book for the following email clients:

Gmail

Click the down arrow (More) next to the Reply button in the top right corner of the email message.

Select Add ___ to Contacts list from the menu that comes up.

Outlook

Create a contact for that person in your Outlook Contacts. After the contact is saved, the changes are reflected in the Address Book.

Apple Mail

Open Address Book from the Launchpad, Dock, or from the Applications folder.

Click the Add (+) button below the contacts list to create a new contact card.

Enter the person’s name and contact information in the designated fields

In addition, if you find email from info@thebiggive.org.ukin your spam or junk folder, you can tell your email client that it’s not spam by hitting the not spam or not junk button. This will train your software to allow emails from this address in the future.

How do I update my contact details?

To update your charity’s contact details, log in to your account area and click the ‘Update charity profile’ button on the right hand side under ‘Charity details’. This will allow you to edit the information for your charity’s primary contact. To add/update an alternative email for your charity, go to the ‘Alternative email’ tab at the top of the menu on the right hand side.

How do I make sure that my charity stays in touch with the Big Give if I leave the organisation?

When you register on the Big Give, we ask you to add an alternative email address in case we are unable to deliver email notifications to your primary address. We recommend adding your charity’s generic email.

You can always change the email addresses you’ve added and your email preferences by logging in to your account area, clicking ‘Update charity profile’ on the right hand side of your Big Give dashboard and going to the ‘Alternative email tab’, as shown in the screenshot below.

Website issues

I’m having trouble viewing your website on my computer – what should I do?

If you are using Internet Explorer as your browser, we recommend that you consider using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. This is because Internet Explorer is often a less responsive browser.

If you are using our recommended browsers and still encountering issues, please get in touch with us at info@thebiggive.org.uk and if possible, send a screenshot. To do this, press the ‘Print Screen’ button on your keyboard and then Ctrl + V to paste the screenshot into the body of the email. This will help us to resolve the issue more quickly.

How do I resize an image so I can upload it for my charity profile/ logo?

To resize an image, follow these steps:

Open the image

Right click

Hover over ‘Open With’

Select ‘Paint’ from the menu

Here’s what you should see:

Go to ‘Resize’ in Paint, as shown below:

Select ‘Pixels’ and enter 1024 in the ‘Horizontal’ box. Then click ‘OK’.